lmms-devel

Hello all,
It's the first time I put my 2 cents here.
I'm a quite seasoned developper with unfortunately no time to contribute to
LMMS... for now.
Anyway, I believe LMMS is a great software, with still some annoying issues.
Among them, the way VSTs are handled in LMMS.
IMHO, we should drop any dependency to VST files in mmp/mmpz files.
This would avoid portability problems (among OS or among machines).
How to achieve this?
- In preferences, allow for more than one VST folder (for more
convenience), and add a "Refresh" button.
- Upon LMMS first startup and Refresh button clic, scan VSTs in
specified folder(s), and build a base containing : VST name, VST file size,
VST file full path.
- In a mmp file, do not use a path anymore to load a VST file, only its
name and its size.
- In order to find a VST's path, resolve it in database thanks to the
pair {name,size}.
The pair {name, size} should be enough to uniquely identify a VST. But if
you think this pair is not enough, add a MD5 hash computed from VST dll
bytes.
AFAIK, this method seems used by every sequencer commercial supporting VSTs.
Best,
Alexis
>
> I'll chime in with a different viewpoint. I do alot of my composition
> while traveling so use a netbook with limited disk space. I'd much
> prefer not to be forced to install my VSTs in multiple places on my
> machine if that could be helped. Why not simply make a config option
> for locating the root VST plugin folder and default it to something
> within the LMMS install? That way people like me can point it as a
> common install location if we want to and we can still use relative
> paths when saving in a project?
>
> -- Dave
>
>
>

if you can create a class with few functions?
that.canBeExtended with moreOptions?
it would be nice
but i had an issue with one of my files in commercial program when i
just couldn't load the file without having a same version of exact vst
plugin, so i needed to get back to the older version of OS and reinstall
old soft and then rebuild the project just to get some of my notes. - i
said, nah - not this time, and hacked the similar way that symlinks do.
so yes this is an issue of vsts and apps that the positions of knobs
needs to be stored somehow exactly in the project, because if you will
not store it how do you get the same sound? but without too much of
conflicts of version changes of this vst.
Mike asked about where knobs position to store? well maybe this can be
the presets.xml file in the vsts folder, that can be accessed and
modified the way you've proposed here for all vsts?
> Hello all,
>
> It's the first time I put my 2 cents here.
> I'm a quite seasoned developper with unfortunately no time to
> contribute to LMMS... for now.
>
> Anyway, I believe LMMS is a great software, with still some annoying
> issues.
> Among them, the way VSTs are handled in LMMS.
> IMHO, we should drop any dependency to VST files in mmp/mmpz files.
> This would avoid portability problems (among OS or among machines).
>
> How to achieve this?
>
> * In preferences, allow for more than one VST folder (for more
> convenience), and add a "Refresh" button.
> * Upon LMMS first startup and Refresh button clic, scan VSTs in
> specified folder(s), and build a base containing : VST name, VST
> file size, VST file full path.
> * In a mmp file, do not use a path anymore to load a VST file, only
> its name and its size.
> * In order to find a VST's path, resolve it in database thanks to
> the pair {name,size}.
>
>
> The pair {name, size} should be enough to uniquely identify a VST. But
> if you think this pair is not enough, add a MD5 hash computed from VST
> dll bytes.
>
> AFAIK, this method seems used by every sequencer commercial supporting
> VSTs.
>
> Best,
>
> Alexis
>
--
OEAI